Inevitable Estate Planning Certainties We All Do Not Want To Hear:
We all will pass away.
We cannot take any assets, money, or belongings with us beyond the grave.
Death most likely will come at a time we least expect.
Someone else will get to enjoy most of our savings and remaining things.
The One Thing We Can Control:
We can decide (through a good estate plan) the people who can benefit from our savings and remaining things.
How we can control this? I have listed out the six choices to choose from when estate planning and explained the reasoning behind each choice.
First Choice: The Gift of Assets – Who Receives Them?
An important part of building wealth through sacrifice and hard work is choosing a good successor. The decision can come down to your heirs; charity; or the government (through taxes). Through improper planning or dying without an estate plan, you can set up a situation in which you do not get to decide who those people or institutions will be. A good estate plan can ensure the people that benefit from your years of hard work are the people that you have selected.
Second Choice: The Amount – How Much?
Once you’ve answered the question of who receives your generosity, the next problem is how to distribute your assets to those people. If you have several children, likely, some of them are better equipped to handle wealth than others. Their age or their past choices may determine this. Some might have more genuine needs at particular times in their life. Drafting a good estate plan will tackle all these situations and handle them exactly as you see fit and desire.
Third Choice: Timing – When?
If you’ve chosen to give your wealth to your children, should you distribute it now, should you distribute it when they are a little older when they may need it the most, or when they are more responsible to handle an inflow of wealth? Good advice may be to start making those gifts while you are still alive so that you can enjoy your generosity and the effect it has on your loved ones. A good estate plan can handle all these situations exactly as you see fit and can set up distributions at certain points in the loved one’s life to fully take advantage of your ability to lessen a need they will have.
Fourth Choice: Treasure – What?
Do you have those specific treasures that you just know one person loves more than any other or that treasure that holds a memory with another person? Treasures like a wedding dress, a shotgun, a ring, or a baseball card, all need to go to that one person that truly will appreciate what it meant to you. A good estate plan will allow you to specifically give those things to the person or people that you want to.
Fifth Choice: Tools and Techniques – How?
You need help to guide you through this process to be able to decide on the first four questions and to begin drafting a proper estate plan. Remember, estate planning tools help you accomplish your objectives, but they are not the objective. A good estate lawyer can help you identify a strategy and map out a plan best suited to your personal goals.
Sixth Choice: Talk – Hoovler Law Office can explain the Why, Who, How Much, When, What, and How of a good estate plan for you.
The target of this step and pointing out the first five choices in estate planning is to get everyone to understand the need to complete a good estate plan. Everyone should be on the same page with no surprises; talk to an estate planning lawyer and take the easy steps to decide on choices one through five.